g6 Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



roped a big bull he would brace himself, bending back 

 until he was almost sitting down and digging his heels 

 into the ground, and the galloping beast would be stopped 

 short and whirled completely round when the rope taut- 

 ened. The maddened bulls, and an occasional steer or 

 cow, charged again and again with furious wrath; but 

 two or three ropes would settle on the doomed beast, 

 and down it would go; and when it was released and 

 rose and charged once more, with greater fury than ever, 

 the men, shouting with laughter, would leap up the sides 

 of the heavy stockade. 



We stayed at the ranch until a couple of days before 

 Christmas. Hitherto the weather had been lovely. The 

 night before we left there was a torrential tropic down- 

 pour. It was not unexpected, for we had been told that 

 the rainy season was overdue. The following forenoon 

 the baggage started, in a couple of two-wheeled ox-carts, 

 for the landing where the steamboat awaited us. Each 

 cart was drawn by eight oxen. The huge wheels were 

 over seven feet high. Early in the afternoon we fol- 

 lowed on horseback, and overtook the carts as darkness 

 fell, just before we reached the landing on the river's 

 bank. The last few miles, after the final reaches of 

 higher, tree-clad ground had been passed, were across a 

 level plain of low ground on which the water stood, 

 sometimes only up to the ankles of a man on foot, some- 

 times as high as his waist. Directly in front of us, 

 many leagues distant, rose the bold mountains that lie 

 west of Corumba. Behind them the sun was setting 

 and kindled the overcast heavens with lurid splendor. 

 Then the last rose tints faded from the sky; the horses 



